PINATA: PIN Automatic Try Attack on EMV Smart Cards
Salvador Mendoza introduces PINATA, a hardware attack tool executing extreme brute force attacks against flawed 4-digit PIN verification routines on EMV smart cards.
Summary
EMV Smart Card Security and PIN Retry Counters
Standard EMV chip cards enforce strict PIN Try Counters (typically 3 attempts) before permanently locking the payment applet to prevent brute force discovery.
Identifying Flawed EMV Applet Implementations
Salvador Mendoza discovers defective smart card payment applets that fail to persist the retry counter properly across power reset cycles.
Building the PINATA Automated Brute-Force Rig
Mendoza constructs PINATA, an automated hardware rig that rapidly injects PIN combinations and resets smart card power lines within milliseconds.
Cracking 4-Digit PINs in Record Time
The author demonstrates exhausting the entire 10,000 PIN keyspace in under an hour, urging banking institutions to enforce strict non-volatile retry counter logging.
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